


Only the truth you want to see

by Starrie_Wolf



Category: Bleach
Genre: A human's perspective on the UraIchi relationship, Crackier version, Don't Post To Another Site, Dr Orihime, Dr Uryuu, Established Relationship, Ichigo the... English Literature student, Indiana Jones!Chad, M/M, Post-Canon, Tokyo University, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21857917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: Growing up as the daughter of a police detective father and a novelist mother, it’s no small wonder that Rika chose to study English Literature in university. The class is unavoidably small – even for Todai,finding students interested in pursuing a degree in the classics of a foreign country is a difficult matter.Which makes all her classmates so unavoidably interesting.Especiallythat Kurosaki Ichigo.
Relationships: Inoue Orihime & Ishida Uryuu & Kurosaki Ichigo & Sado "Chad" Yasutora, Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 27
Kudos: 529
Collections: UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4





	Only the truth you want to see

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow I wrote two versions of the Outsider PoV prompt so... have both of them!
> 
> UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4  
> Prompt: 061. Epilogue  
> (Previously 042. Outsider PoV)
> 
> Because this is the epilogue we deserve ft. Dr Orihime and Indiana Jones!Chad

Rika likes to pride herself on her observational skills.

Growing up as the daughter of a police detective father and a novelist mother, it’s no small wonder that she chose to study English Literature in university. The class is unavoidably small – even for Todai, the top university in Japan, finding students interested in pursuing a degree in the classics of a foreign country is a difficult matter.

Which makes all her classmates so _unavoidably_ interesting.

Especially that Kurosaki Ichigo.

They’d all done their introductions in the first few weeks, of course. Kurosaki Ichigo is the son of a doctor, from what sounds like a highly traditionalistic family, and he chooses English Literature instead of Medicine or Forensics or Law?

Consider Rika’s interest _piqued_.

It’s not difficult to figure out that he came to Todai with a couple of classmates from high school, given that they met up during lunch break every day. Ishida Uryū and Inoue Orihime are both first years in Medicine, which makes it all the stranger that Kurosaki didn’t choose to follow them. Yasutora… Sado? Chado? Anyway, he’s doing Archaeology, another under-subscribed degree, but at least his motivation is understandable. Yasutora had said something about unexplored and undocumented ruins in Mexico.

It’s not even difficult to get herself sort-of invited into their friend circle. Inoue’s friendliness is apparently not a mask, and questionable tastes in food aside, Rika finds herself reluctantly charmed this odd ragtag group of friends. They clearly go back a long way, and she doesn’t get any of their inside jokes – they keep referencing some video game about soul reapers, which they all apparently played in high school. Honestly, with the amount of time they seemed to have spent in that game, Rika’s a little surprised that all of them managed to get into Todai.

But out of his friends, Kurosaki is the enigma Rika’s the most invested in cracking. Incredibly well-read and fluent in English, but dresses like a delinquent and doesn’t seem to care. Never hits the gym, but has the speed and the endurance to chase down a purse-snatcher. He doesn’t behave like an eighteen-year-old boy at all – except in one respect.

“Hey, Kurosaki,” she says, when he turns down a confession from one of their classmates with the excuse that he is already taken, “do you really have a significant other?”

“Yeah,” he answers shortly, and doesn’t continue.

“High school sweethearts?”

To her surprise, he cracks a little bit of a grin, and it lights up his face. “Something like that,” he agrees.

Rika claps her hands together. “Oooh, do you have a picture?”

To her surprise, though, Ichigo shakes his head. But she isn’t so easy deterred. “Does she have a social media account?” she presses.

Ichigo frowns at her, but it’s more thoughtful than upset. “No. And it’s not a ‘she’.”

Startled, Rika watches him walk away.

She should… apologise. That would explain so much. Why Kurosaki is working part-time to pay for his education, even though his father is a doctor. Why Kurosaki never talks about his family at all. Why his other high school friends don’t rib Kurosaki about his significant other, unlike most teenagers Rika has seen.

Do they even know?

“Hey,” she says to Inoue, having managed to catch the other girl alone on a rare occasion. “Do you know if Kurosaki has his eye on someone?”

Inoue blinks, startled by the question. “… yes,” she answers, hesitantly.

“Oh.” Rika affects a disappointed look. “That’s surprising. Kurosaki never talks about her.”

Inoue glances around shiftily, a clear sign that she knows something but isn’t willing to say it. Rika’s a little surprised, to be honest. So his friends _do_ know, but aren’t willing to divulge the specifics?

“They’re very happy together,” Inoue suddenly adds, of her own accord. “I’m sorry if you like him, Rika-san –”

“Oh, no, it’s not for me,” Rika dodges expertly. “See, there’s this girl in our class who really likes Kurosaki, so she wanted to know – well, I guess she’ll just have to be disappointed, then.”

Inoue smiles, understanding and a little sad, and drops the matter.

\--------

A month into their acquaintance, Rika’s patience is finally rewarded. After their last lecture of the day, Kurosaki makes a beeline for the school gates. Normally that wouldn’t have caught her attention – Inoue and Ishida frequently end later than them, since Medicine has more lectures, so it’s normal for them not to wait – but the blond man standing at the gates, dressed strangely in traditional garb paired with a garish striped bucket hat, gives her pause.

Kurosaki doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he’s meeting up with a middle-aged man decked out in Edo-period cosplay. They exchange a few words that Rika’s too far away to hear, and then set off together.

Forget homework, this is _far_ more interesting. From his body language, Kurosaki looked vaguely awkward, but there’s no sense of reluctance, nothing that would suggest he’s being coerced into going off with a random stranger.

Don’t tell her… _that’s_ the boyfriend?

“Hey,” she says, when she finally catches Inoue and Ishida coming out from their final lecture of the day. “I didn’t know Kurosaki had a family friend in Tokyo.”

They blink and exchange confused looks. “He… doesn’t?” Inoue says, although her tone makes it more of a question.

“Huh,” Rika mused. “Then who was that weird blond guy waiting for him earlier?”

“Wearing wooden clogs and a green-and-white striped bucket hat?” confirms Ishida, although it sounds somewhat rhetorical. The fact that he immediately knows who Rika was talking about from a description as vague as that sends her detective senses tingling.

Rika nods, even though she doesn’t think she needs to.

“Oh.” Ishida snorts. “That’s just Urahara-san.”

She blinks. Well, that’s not helpful at all. Although it does reassure her a little, to know that Kurosaki’s friends are clearly familiar with his… boyfriend? “Who’s Urahara-san?”

Inoue and Ishida exchange a meaningful look that speaks volumes.

“Urahara-san is, uh –” Inoue pokes her fingers together “– a very good friend of Kurosaki-kun’s!”

Rika raises a single eyebrow and lets that do all the talking for her. Urahara looked to be around twice Kurosaki’s age. Where did Kurosaki meet a ‘very good friend’ like that? The Yakuza?

Wait, with that hair colour –

She fixes her best bubbly airhead look onto her face. “Where did you all meet him?”

“Umm,” Inoue says, and then falters. “Actually, he was the one who introduced us to Soul Society…”

“Oh!” Rika blinks. She hasn’t considered that possibility. A middle-aged man who walks around in cosplay in broad daylight? Rika supposes that he could be an otaku, and to take a stab in the dark, he might also be running a video game store to fuel his hobbies. “He… is a shopkeeper?”

For some reason, Inoue finds that comment inexplicably funny.

“Well, I suppose, yes!” she agrees brightly. “Actually, we’re going there right now, would you like to come along?”

 _Would_ she ever.

On the walk over, Rika learns a few more things. One, Urahara apparently just moved his store – a candy shop, not a video game shop – to Asakusa, here in Tokyo, which is why Kurosaki left with him earlier. He was helping to unpack and get the shop ready for customers.

“And Kurosaki-kun won’t need to bunk on our couch any longer!” Inoue skips ahead. “Poor Kurosaki-kun, I know he says he doesn’t mind, but I bet he’s looking forward to getting his own room again!”

“Wait,” Rika says, “they _live together_?” Another idea occurs to her, then, and she stops. “Is he, you know…” she trails off, making sure she looks as harmless as possible, “Kurosaki’s sugar daddy?”

Inoue’s mouth drops open.

“Well,” Ishida says slowly, but not in a way that says he disagrees, “he _is_ paying for Kurosaki’s education. And housing.”

Inoue hits him on the arm. “Only because Kurosaki-kun wants to make sure his sisters have enough for their future tertiary education! And Urahara-san offered us rooms too, remember – it’s just that we managed to find this three-bedroom flat next to the hospital at such an affordable rate that we simply can’t pass it up?”

Ishida shoves his glasses up his nose in a slightly suspicious manner that makes Rika wonder if he – or more likely his father, who’s the director of Karakura General Hospital, has something to with it.

They enter a shop that looks right at home in the centre of Asakusa, next to all those traditional shrines and temples. Rika supposes she can understand the traditional garb Urahara had been wearing a little better now.

“Welcome!” Kurosaki calls out, busy stocking some shelves, before he turns around and realises that it’s just them.

“Hello, Kurosaki-kun!” Inoue greets, bouncing up to him. “Do you need any help?”

Yasutora pokes his head out from an inner room, arms full of boxes. Behind him are two younger teenagers, a boy and a girl. The girl is holding a broom, but the boy marches up to Kurosaki, handing him a smaller box.

“The boss wants these behind the front counter,” he says curtly. When he sweeps off, Rika’s eyes catch on the full sleeve of tattoos he’s sporting.

The yakuza theory is getting more and more likely.

After an afternoon of menial labour, Kurosaki insists that they stay for dinner, of course. Rika chooses not to mention how he’s acting as if he’s the host, instead of Urahara, whom she still hasn’t seen. She half-expected the blond to skip dinner as well, except he goes and proves her wrong, of course.

“Everyone,” Kurosaki gestures, “this is Satō Rika, one of my university classmates.”

She bows, because her parents did raise her right. “Please take care of me.”

“Satō, this is Urahara Kisuke,” Kurosaki pauses just the slightest bit, almost imperceptibly, “my boyfriend.”

For a moment, Rika can’t keep the surprise off her face. She hasn’t expected him to just up and admit it.

Urahara’s brows are arched slightly, but his expression is largely hidden by the paper fan in front of his face. “Please to meet you, Satō-san,” he greets, dipping his head slightly. He doesn’t sound worried at all that Kurosaki just outed them both to what’s essentially a stranger.

Confidence? Or… something else?

Rika feels Urahara’s gaze on her, and as she meets his eyes she gets the oddest sensation, like she’s an insect pinned to a board about to be dissected. The whole exchange is over in seconds, but Rika’s heart is pounding in her chest like she’s just run a marathon.

She finishes dinner on autopilot, and then circles around the back of the shop after ostensibly saying her farewells, trying to see if there’s any gap in the fence that she can peer through. There’s something she’s missing here. Urahara and Kurosaki are too close, too in-tune for two people who’ve ostensibly only started dating for a few months. Maybe Kurosaki is a yakuza heir and Urahara used to be his bodyguard. Maybe _Urahara_ is part of the yakuza gang watching Kurosaki’s neighbourhood and Kurosaki is part of his protection fee. Maybe Kurosaki saved one of the kids Urahara is guardian of, and regular visits to the clinic his father runs turned into love.

There are no easily accessible spyholes she can find, but it doesn’t deter Rika in the slightest. She has four years to figure this out, after all.

“Have you considered,” Urahara says drily from behind her, startling her so badly that she squeaks. “Kurosaki-san and I met in the middle of a spirit war, and after years of working together and relying on each other, our comradeship eventually turns into something more?”

Rika barks a surprised laugh.

Yeah. A love of the same video game, falling in love without having met each other… that would explain it.

What else can it be, right?

**Author's Note:**

> #how to explain "now that the jūreichi (the point in the Human World that possesses the greatest concentration of spiritual beings) is migrating from Karakura to Tokyo, the primary shinigami waystation in the Human World needs to follow suit" to a human
> 
> And now I want to see Bleach the Video Game lol... possibly Jumanji-style.
> 
> [cywscross's UraIchi Discord server](https://discordapp.com/invite/ADFnKTZ#_=_) | [Starrie's fic sneak preview server](https://discord.gg/8yJVmbD) | [Starrie's Tumblr](http://starriewolf.tumblr.com)


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